Air conditioning unit of track vehicle mounted under vehicle

ABSTRACT

An underfloor air conditioning unit of a track vehicle is a unitary air conditioning unit and includes a housing, an inside of the housing being divided into an indoor side and an outdoor side, and a condenser, a condenser fan, and a compressor are mounted in the outdoor side, wherein two side walls, corresponding to air intakes of skirt plates at two sides of an equipment compartment, of the housing are each provided with a condensing air inlet, and a bottom wall of the housing is provided with a condensing air outlet, the condenser fan is arranged close to a position of the condensing air outlet of the bottom wall, the number of the condenser is two, and the two condensers are arranged respectively close to the condensing air inlets at the two sides.

The present application claims the benefit of priorities to Chinese patent application No. 201410743312.1, titled “UNDERFLOOR AIR CONDITIONING UNIT FOR RAILWAY VEHICLE”, filed with the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office on Dec. 8, 2014, and Chinese patent application No. 201420765292.3, titled “UNDERFLOOR AIR CONDITIONING UNIT FOR RAILWAY VEHICLE”, filed with the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office on Dec. 8, 2014, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present application relates to an air conditioning unit, and particularly to an underfloor air conditioning unit for a railway vehicle, and pertains to the technical field of railway vehicle air conditioners.

BACKGROUND

Currently, mounting manners of vehicle air conditioning units are mainly classified into mounting on a roof of a vehicle and mounting beneath the vehicle. By mounting an air conditioner beneath the vehicle, the center of gravity of the vehicle can be lowered, which allows the vehicle to have a good stability when running at a high speed. In the case that the air conditioner is mounted on the roof of the vehicle, it has a large distance from a rail surface (about 3.3 m), the temperature of the condensation inlet air is approximate to the atmosphere temperature, and the atmosphere temperature does not exceed 45 Celsius degrees in the hot season, therefore, in the hot season, the condensation effect of the air conditioner is relatively good, and a large refrigerating output can be achieved, and the refrigerating capacity can be ensured. However, in the case that the air conditioner is mounted beneath the railway vehicle, not only the mounting of the air conditioner may be limited by the mounting space for the underfloor equipments, but also, the air conditioner has a small distance from the rail surface (about 0.5 m). In the hot season, due to the effect of heat radiation from ground surface and heat dissipation of the equipments in an equipment compartment, the temperature of the condensing air of the air conditioner is higher than the atmosphere temperature by about 10 Celsius degrees, and the condensing temperature may reach to 55 Celsius degrees, which results in that the air conditioner cannot exert its full refrigerating capacity in the hot season due to the inferior condensing effect, and has an inferior refrigerating effect, and the temperature in the vehicle is undesirably high.

A conventional underfloor air conditioning unit, as disclosed in Chinese Patent No. 200820133582.0 titled “AIR CONDITIONING DEVICE FOR HIGH-SPEED RAILWAY VEHICLE”, includes a housing, and the inside of the housing is divided into an indoor side and an outdoor side. A condenser, a compressor, and a condenser fan are installed in the outdoor side, and two condenser fans are installed at one side in the housing, and a side wall of the housing is provided with a condensing air inlet. The condenser is arranged at another side in the housing, and a condensing air outlet is provided in a side wall of the housing at a position corresponding to the condenser. The flowing direction of the condensing air of the air conditioner is sucking in air from a skirt plate at one side and the equipment compartment, and discharging the air via a skirt plate at another side after absorbing heat of the condenser. Under the influence of the arrangement of the equipments in the underfloor equipment compartment, the air conditioning unit of this structure has a condensing air output smaller than a designed value after the air conditioner is mounted, and the condensing effect obtained by the arrangement in which air is fed from a single side and discharged from a single side is inferior, the condensing air output cannot meet the refrigerating requirement for the air conditioner in the hot season, and the riding comfort in the vehicle is adversely affected in a certain degree. Furthermore, the conventional unitary air conditioning unit is arranged along a length direction of a vehicle body, and a space needs to be reserved between each of two sides of the air conditioner and a respective skirt plate for air to flow through, which takes a large space under the vehicle.

SUMMARY

A main object of the present application is to address the above issues and deficiencies, to provide an underfloor air conditioning unit for a railway vehicle which can increase a condensing air intake volume, and has an improved refrigerating efficiency under a high temperature environment.

To achieve the above objects, the following technical solutions are provided according to the present application.

An underfloor air conditioning unit for a railway vehicle is a unitary air conditioning unit and includes a housing, an inside of the housing is divided into an indoor side and an outdoor side, and a condenser, a condenser fan, and a compressor are mounted in the outdoor side, wherein two side walls, corresponding to air intakes of skirt plates at two sides of an equipment compartment, of the housing are each provided with a condensing air inlet, and a bottom wall of the housing is provided with a condensing air outlet, the condenser fan is arranged close to a position of the condensing air outlet of the bottom wall, the number of the condenser is two, and the two condensers are arranged respectively close to the condensing air inlets at the two sides.

Further, the housing is extended in a width direction of a vehicle body, and the side walls of two sides of the housing are arranged respectively closely adjacent to the air intakes of the skirt plates at the two sides.

Further, the number of the compressor is two, and the two compressors are mounted respectively in spaces between the condensers at two sides and respective side walls of the housing.

Further, the number of the condenser fan is two, and the two condenser fans are arranged side by side between the two condensers along the width direction of the vehicle body.

Further, an air passage enclosed by a connecting plate is arranged between the side wall at each of two sides of the housing and the air intake of the respective skirt plate, and the air intake of the respective skirt plate is in communication with the respective condensing air inlet via the air passage.

Further, a first filtering device is provided at each of the air intakes of the skirt plates.

Further, a second filtering device is provided at each of the condensing air inlets.

Further, the bottom wall of the housing of the air conditioning unit functions as a base plate of the equipment compartment, and the bottom wall of the housing is fixedly connected to a surrounding base plate of the equipment compartment.

Further, the condensers are placed perpendicular to the bottom wall of the housing, or are placed to be inclined towards a center line of a vehicle body.

In summary, compared with the conventional technology, the underfloor air conditioning unit for the railway vehicle according to the present application has the following advantages.

(1) The number of the condenser is increased from one to two, and the condenser fan is mounted at the bottom surface instead of being mounted at a lateral side, and the air feeding and discharging direction of the condensing air of the air conditioner is changed, the condensing air inlets are arranged at two sides of the skirt plates, the condensing outgoing direction is arranged at the bottom of the air conditioning unit, the condensing air intake area of the air conditioner is doubled, thus increasing the condensing air output of the air conditioner, and improving the refrigerating effect of the air conditioner in a high temperature, thereby, the riding comfort of the vehicle in a long time operation in a high temperature environment is improved.

(2) In the present application, air is fed from two sides of the skirt plates, and the air conditioning unit has an increased length in the width direction of the vehicle body, and is in cooperation with the skirt plates at the two sides, to reduce the length of the air conditioning unit in the length direction of the vehicle body. Therefore, the structure and mounting manners of the air conditioning unit in the conventional technology are changed, which can not only ensure the intake volume, but also save the space under the vehicle in a large extent.

(3) In the present application, the condensing air outlet is arranged at the bottom of the air conditioning unit to discharge air downward, to prevent the condensing air of the air conditioning unit from being discharged into the equipment compartment in which case a temperature in the equipment compartment may be increased and thus adversely affecting the normal operation of other equipments.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For more clearly illustrating embodiments of the present application or the technical solutions in the conventional technology, drawings referred to describe the embodiments or the conventional technology will be briefly described hereinafter. Apparently, the drawings in the following description are only some examples of the present application, and for the person skilled in the art, other drawings may be obtained based on these drawings without any creative efforts.

FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing the structure of a first embodiment according to the present application;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view showing the air feeding and air discharging manner of a condensing air according to the present application;

FIG. 3 is a schematic view showing the structure of a second embodiment of the present application; and

FIG. 4 is a view of FIG. 3 viewed in direction A.

Reference numerals in FIGS. 1 to 4:

1 equipment compartment, 2 housing, 3 indoor side, 4 outdoor side, 5 evaporator, 6 evaporating fan, 7 condenser, 8 condenser fan, 9 compressor, 10 air supply opening, 11 return air opening, 12 condensing air inlet, 13 condensing air outlet, 14 skirt plate, 15 air intake.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

To make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of embodiments of the present application clearer, the technical solutions according to the embodiments of the present application will be described clearly and completely as follows in conjunction with the drawings in the embodiments of the present application. It is apparent that the described embodiments are a part of the embodiments according to the present application rather than all the embodiments. Any other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments in the present application without any creative works fall within the scope of protection of the present application.

The present application is further described in detail hereinafter in conjunction with drawings and embodiments.

First Embodiment

As shown in FIG. 1, an underfloor air conditioning unit for a railway vehicle according to the present application is a unitary air conditioning unit, and is integrally mounted in an equipment compartment 1 beneath the railway vehicle. The air conditioning unit includes a housing 2, and the inside of the housing 2 is divided into an indoor side 3 and an outdoor side 4. An evaporator 5 and an evaporating fan 6 and the like are mounted in the indoor side 3, and a condenser 7, a condenser fan 8 and a compressor 9 are mounted in the outdoor side 4. An air supply opening 10 and a return air opening 11 are provided in the housing at the indoor side 3, and a condensing air inlet 12 and a condensing air outlet 13 are provided in the housing at the outdoor side 4.

To achieve the ventilation and cooling of the equipments in the equipment compartment 1, each skirt plate 14 is provided with an air intake 15, and a first filtering device is provided at the air intake 15. The first filtering device may be embodied as a filtering mesh or a mechanical filter, and the like, to effectively filter sand dust and the like in the environment, and to perform a coarse filtration to the condensing air, thereby ensuring the normal operation of the air conditioning unit. In this embodiment, corresponding to the air intakes 15 in the skirt plates 14 at two sides, side walls at two sides of the housing 2 are each provided with a condensing air inlet 12. For further filtering fine sand dust, a second filtering device may be further provided at the condensing air inlets 12, and the second filtering device may be embodied as nonwoven fabrics or stainless steel mesh, and the like, to secondarily filter the air entered into the condenser 7 of the air conditioning unit. A condensing air outlet 13 is provided in a bottom wall of the housing 2, to achieve an air feeding and air discharging manner of the condensing air in which air is fed from the two sides of the housing 2 and is discharged from the bottom of the housing 2. In this embodiment, a base plate for the equipment compartment 1 is not separately arranged beneath the air conditioning unit, and the bottom wall of the housing 2 functions as the base plate of the equipment compartment 1, thus, the condensing outgoing air of the air conditioning unit is directly discharged outside of the vehicle, and is prevented from being discharged into the equipment compartment 1 which may cause a temperature rising in the equipment compartment, and adversely affect normal operation of other equipments. The bottom wall of the housing 2 and a surrounding base plate of the equipment compartment 1 are fixedly connected, to ensure the tightness of the equipment compartment 1, prevent the sand dust and the like from entering into the equipment compartment 1, and a sealing treatment may be performed on the joint of the bottom wall of the housing 2 and the surrounding base plate of the equipment compartment 1.

Two condensers 7, two condenser fans 8 and two compressors 9 are provided in the outdoor side 4. The two condensers 7 are arranged respectively close to the condensing air inlets 12 at the two sides. The two condensers 7 may be vertically fixed to the bottom wall of the housing 2 by a mounting structure. In this embodiment, for increasing the heat exchanging area of the condensers, the condensers 7 are installed to be inclined towards a center line of the vehicle body. The two condenser fans 8 are arranged close to the position of the condensing air outlet 13 in the bottom wall, and two condensing air outlets 13 are correspondingly provided. The two condenser fans 8 are mounted side by side along a length direction of the vehicle body, and the two condensers 7 are arranged respectively at two sides of the two condenser fans 8, and the two compressors 9 are mounted in a space between the condenser 7 at one side and a side wall, corresponding to this condenser 7, of the housing 2.

As shown in FIG. 2, the direction indicated by the arrows in the drawing is an air flow direction. When the air conditioning unit is in operation, under the effect of the two condenser fans 8, air is fed from the air intakes 15 of the skirt plates 14 at the two sides of the equipment compartment 1, and enters into the outdoor side 2 via the condensing air inlets 12 in the side walls of two sides of the air conditioning unit, and respectively exchanges heat with a high temperature coolant in the two condensers 7, and then the air with a high temperature after exchanging heat is discharged outside of the vehicle from the condensing air outlets 13 in the bottom wall of the housing 2.

In this embodiment, the number of the condenser 7 is increased to two from one in the conventional technology, and the condenser fan 8 is mounted at the bottom surface of the outdoor side 4 instead of being mounted at a lateral side of the outdoor side 4, and air is fed from two sides simultaneously, the condensing air intake area of the air conditioning unit is doubled as compared with the conventional technology, thus greatly increasing the condensing air output of the air conditioning unit, and improving the refrigerating effect of the air conditioner in a high temperature, thereby, the riding comfort of the vehicle in a long time operation in a high temperature environment is improved greatly.

Second Embodiment

Unlike the first embodiment, in this embodiment, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the direction indicated by the arrows in the drawing is the air flow direction. In this embodiment, the housing 2 extends in a width direction of the vehicle body, and side walls of two sides of the housing 2 are arranged respectively closely adjacent to the air intakes 15 of the skirt plates 14 at the two sides. The length of the housing 2 in the width direction of the vehicle body is greater than its length in the length direction of the vehicle body, that is, the length of the housing 2 in the width direction of the vehicle body is increased, and the length of the housing 2 in the length direction of the vehicle body is shortened. Since condensing air inlets 12 in the two side walls of the housing 2 are respectively closely adjacent to the air intakes 15 of the skirt plates 14, most of the air entered from the air intakes 15 with a low temperature enters into the housing 2 of the air conditioning unit, and participates in the heat exchanging with the condensers 7, thus improving the heat exchanging efficiency of the air conditioning unit.

In this embodiment, since the length of the housing 1 in the width direction of the vehicle body is increased, two compressors 9 are respectively mounted into spaces between the condensers 7 at two sides and the respective side walls of the housing 2, the two condenser fans 8 are arranged side by side between the two condensers 7 along the width direction of the vehicle body, and the two condensers 7 are arranged to be inclined towards the center line of the vehicle body in a vertical direction and a horizontal direction, thus further increasing the heat exchanging area of the condensers 7. The evaporator 5 in the indoor side 3 may also be lengthened correspondingly, which may further increase the evaporation heat exchanging area. Two of the evaporating fan 6 may be provided to further increase the indoor ventilation quantity. The increase of the areas of the condenser and the evaporator, the increase of the indoor and outdoor ventilation quantities all greatly improve the refrigerating capacity of the air conditioning unit, and meets the refrigerating requirement for the air conditioner in the hot season, and ensures the riding comfort for passengers in a high temperature operation environment.

In this embodiment, the air conditioning unit has an increased length in the width direction of the vehicle body, and is in cooperation with the skirt plates 14 at the two sides, and the length of the air conditioning unit is shortened in the length direction of the vehicle body. Therefore, the structure and mounting manners of the air conditioning unit in the conventional technology are changed, and it is no longer required to reserve large spaces at two sides of the air conditioning unit for air to flow through, and the space of the vehicle body in the length direction is saved, which saves the space under the vehicle in a large extent.

Third Embodiment

Unlike the second embodiment, in this embodiment, side walls of two sides of the housing 2 are each of an open structure, and the whole side walls function as condensing air inlets 12 respectively. The side walls of two sides of the housing 2 are connected to respective skirt plates 14 by respective connecting plates (not shown). A space enclosed by the connecting plate forms an air intake passage, and each of the condensing air inlets 12 is in communication with the air intake 15 of the respective skirt plate 14 via the air intake passage, thus an individual space is formed between the condensing air inlet 12 and the air intake 15 of the respective skirt plate 14, to allow the air entered from the air intake 15 with a low temperature to wholly enter into the housing 2 of the air conditioning unit, to participate in the heat exchanging with the condenser 7, thereby further improving the heat exchanging efficiency of the air conditioning unit.

Based on the above description, similar technical solutions can be made in conjunction with the technical solutions shown in the drawings. However, any simple changes, equivalent variations and modifications made to the above embodiments according to the technical content of the present application, without departing from the content of the technical solution of the present application, are deemed to fall in the scope of the technical solution of the present application. 

What is claimed is:
 1. An underfloor air conditioning unit for a railway vehicle, being a unitary air conditioning unit and comprising a housing, an inside of the housing being divided into an indoor side and an outdoor side, and a condenser, a condenser fan, and a compressor being mounted in the outdoor side, wherein two side walls, corresponding to air intakes of skirt plates at two sides of an equipment compartment, of the housing are each provided with a condensing air inlet, and a bottom wall of the housing is provided with a condensing air outlet, the condenser fan is arranged close to a position of the condensing air outlet of the bottom wall, the number of the condenser is two, and the two condensers are arranged respectively close to the condensing air inlets at the two sides.
 2. The underfloor air conditioning unit for the railway vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the housing is extended in a width direction of a vehicle body, and the side walls of two sides of the housing are arranged respectively closely adjacent to the air intakes of the skirt plates at the two sides.
 3. The underfloor air conditioning unit for the railway vehicle according to claim 2, wherein the number of the compressor is two, and the two compressors are mounted respectively in spaces between the condensers at two sides and respective side walls of the housing.
 4. The underfloor air conditioning unit for the railway vehicle according to claim 2, wherein the number of the condenser fan is two, and the two condenser fans are arranged side by side between the two condensers along the width direction of the vehicle body.
 5. The underfloor air conditioning unit for the railway vehicle according to claim 1, wherein an air passage enclosed by a connecting plate is arranged between the side wall at each of two sides of the housing and the air intake of the respective skirt plate, and the air intake of the respective skirt plate is in communication with the respective condensing air inlet via the air passage.
 6. The underfloor air conditioning unit for the railway vehicle according to claim 1, wherein a first filtering device is provided at each of the air intakes of the skirt plates.
 7. The underfloor air conditioning unit for the railway vehicle according to claim 1, wherein a second filtering device is provided at each of the condensing air inlets.
 8. The underfloor air conditioning unit for the railway vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the bottom wall of the housing of the air conditioning unit functions as a base plate of the equipment compartment, and the bottom wall of the housing is fixedly connected to a surrounding base plate of the equipment compartment.
 9. The underfloor air conditioning unit for the railway vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the condensers are placed perpendicular to the bottom wall of the housing, or are placed to be inclined towards a center line of a vehicle body. 